Part 19 (1/2)

I could imagine all kinds of scenarios. Neil-if he despised his father as much as Connie told me he did-in a fit of pique, or out of revenge, laying it out at the dining room table for the paterfamilias. Then Solly, in a rage, confronting me in the state attorney's office in the Duval County Courthouse. Or at home in front of a wide-eyed Toba.

I needed this like a hole in the head. Get Toba angry, and the hole might be more truth than cliche.

Connie sat cross-legged on the teak deck, clasping her hands around her ankles. She seemed oblivious to these possibilities. ”Neil said to me the other day, 'Con, is it possible that about nine months before I was born, you might have been messing around in California? With Gregory Peck, for example? Even Chuck Heston? If you say yes, even if it's Right-Wing Chuckie, I'm going to jump for joy.' I almost hated to disappoint him. I had to tell him again that in those years I was young and hopeful and faithful.”

I brought the cutter through the wind, hauling in the sheets and turning the bow into the Atlantic chop. My thoughts may have shown on my face. Connie rose in one motion and moved mids.h.i.+ps to deal with the jib. She was sure-handed with all the lines that had to be bent around cleats. She glistened from head to toe in the afternoon sun, and a freshening breeze brought the scent of coconut oil straight to my nostrils. The job done, she came aft, stalking toward me across the deck. A lovely predator. She never lacked a plan and the confidence to implement it.

In the c.o.c.kpit she untied the top of her bikini. The nipples stiffened in the breeze. Her African nipples, she called them, because of the way they protruded. She stroked them with her fingertips, which always roused me. Sometimes in motel rooms she insisted that I watch her m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e; she would start with her nipples and work her way down. She had narrow hands and long fingers, and on occasion she used a vibrator. In St. Augustine Beach one rainy Monday, just before my birthday, she hired a call girl named Sue Ann. In the late afternoon, the heartbreakingly pretty nineteen-year-old knocked on the door of our motel room. Sue Ann was from Cairo, Georgia; she had just graduated high school. At first I couldn't believe what was going on.

”A birthday present,” Connie said.

”I don't want it,” I replied, which was an outright lie.

”I do,” she said.

After a while I began to laugh, and I joined them. Thus she purposefully gave to me the gift that she had always denied her husband.

As she settled to her knees now on a cus.h.i.+on in the c.o.c.kpit of the cutter, her sea-green eyes were weighted with purpose. She worked my bathing trunks down to my ankles while I leaned on the tiller to keep us on a close reach toward open ocean. The sails fluttered a little, like my heartbeat. Leaning forward over me, Connie clasped her hands together in the pose of an eager child.

”Pretend it's Sue Ann,” she whispered.

As intended, at least for the moment, her indiscretion with Neil seemed beside the point.

That evening in the pine cabin by the inlet, she sauteed chicken fillets in a mushroom sauce with Spanish sherry-a dish she claimed had no name or recipe, like everything she cooked. She cooked quickly, singing Broadway show tunes while she worked. The endive salad and a vinaigrette dressing seemed to appear in a matter of a few minutes. I poured the wine. This domesticity, as opposed to the domesticity of my home, had a forbidden flavor to it: a spice. As if she read my mind, she said to me, ”Ted, when I met you, you told me you were a happily married man.”

”Yes, I remember saying that.”

”You lied to me, darling.”

”No, I didn't.”

”How about trying 'maybe'?”

”I didn't lie.”

”All right, you lied to yourself. Is that better?”

We began to eat but had little to say. I praised the sauce and the salad, then cleared the table and brewed coffee.

Connie said, ”Ted, tomorrow will be six months since that Cuban kid mugged me in the parking lot.”

”I know.”

”Ted, I love you.”

Those three words had not been used between us before.

”I told Neil that I loved you,” she said. ”If I could, I would tell the world.”

”Connie ...” I tried to speak her name with unalloyed tenderness, but something else clawed its way into my tone. My eyes may also have betrayed me; I sensed that a spark of warning flickered in them for half a second. She saw it. But she was a stubborn woman-much that she had achieved in life had been against the prevailing winds.

She said, ”Let's go for a walk on the beach.”

The ocean gleamed a silvery gray, and fish left faint trails of phosph.o.r.escence. The water was warm enough for us to swim in starlight. A wild turkey gobbled in the bush, and we could hear distant music over the speaker at the pavilion near the mainland town of St. Marys. When I stood naked in the shallows, the slow waves slapped my thighs. I looked up at the stars. The universe was indifferent- even to lovers-but nonetheless conveyed majesty.

Connie floated toward me and then stood by my side, gazing up. We were silent.

In bed later that night, she whispered, ”Let's just sleep. Cuddle me.”

She liked me to hold her from behind. One hand cupping the weight of a breast, I bent my knees into the crook of her knees. The globes of her b.u.t.tocks pressed in rare innocence against my thighs.

We both drifted toward sleep, like seaweed swept out by a tide. It was when I did this that I felt most unfaithful to my wife.

At dawn we made love. The act lasted long enough for the sky to change from a flawed black to a pale blue that had the clarity of gla.s.s.

I had told her that I wanted to be back in Jacksonville by nightfall so that I could spend Sunday with my children. There was a boat to catch to St. Marys. In the early light, over coffee, Connie said, ”If you were happily married, what exists between us wouldn't be possible. There are things you're not facing, Ted.”

I wasn't sure what those things were. They ran deep in the blood. I'd never claimed to be perfect. I didn't want to be perfect.

”I would leave Solly to be with you.”

”Connie, even if-” But I bit that off short. We had never gone in this direction before. It was a collision course.

I set myself to be honest. ”Connie, I don't want you to leave Solly for me. I will not leave Toba and my children for you. Maybe you and I have come to the end of our good luck. Maybe it's time to quit.”

”How cruel you are,” she said softly. ”If you were honest, you'd give in to your wanting me.”

Why was she doing this to herself? Each word pushed me farther away from her.

”Connie, my wife and family are engraved in my life.”

Her hair was matted with the sweat of the morning. Her eyes flared. ”And you want to end this now? You're telling me it's over with us? You can't truly love her!” she burst out. ”Not if you make love to me the way you do! My darling, don't you see that? Ted, you're lying!”

She equated pa.s.sion with love. But I didn't.

”I don't want to hurt you,” I said.

”You're so G.o.dd.a.m.ned cold!”

I was miserable. I hated what was happening. But I knew what I felt and what I had to do.

She let out a wail that made me shudder. ”Is it because I'm older than you?”

”Connie, you're not hearing me!”

”There isn't anything I won't do for you! I swear I'll make you happy!”

This wasn't the woman who'd called me ”honey” when we first met. I got out of bed quickly. With my back to her, I stood at the window, looking at the blurred ocean, where a pair of ibis were in flight. She came up behind me on the planked floor and put her arms around me. Her hands were flat on my heart. For a moment I had the terrible vision that with her knifelike nails she wanted to tear it from my chest, rip it out as if I were some captive sacrifice to an Aztec G.o.d.

But that was not to be. I was not the one to be sacrificed.